Ask HN: What keeps you from exercising?

I've been doing pushups/plank/jumping lunge squats/plank/pushups for a while now, which is nice, but I'm certainly not getting anything near the amount of exercise I'd like to.

So my reasons for not exercising now are two:

1. I don't want to take the time to lift. By the time I stopped lifting, I was taking at least 90 minutes in the gym; probably two hours including changing and showering.

2. I don't have a partner. This helps both for motivation (Steve is waiting for me; I should get going) and for safety/form checks (keep your knees out at the bottom of the squat).

Normally I work 8-5ish then come then have other things I need to get done after.

It's hard to overcome #2 because it takes about 2-3 months of regular, vigorous exercise to see results, if you're just out-of-shape. If you're very overweight, it'll take even longer to see much difference.

#3 really isn't much of a barrier, since you don't actually require any equipment to get in quite good shape. You certainly don't have to join a gym.

The way to overcome #1 and #2 is to develop a habit of exercising. You do lots of things in your life that are unpleasant in the short term but give you long term gains. You don't do them because of the gains, but simply because after awhile they become habit. Commuting to work, for instance. You don't consciously think about driving in to work so you can get paid in two weeks; you do it out of habit.

You can build an exercise habit slowly, by creating a set of rituals around it (e.g., putting on your workout clothes first thing in the morning, doing a short warmup, finishing with a short cooldown) and starting off slow to minimize #1. This will also minimize gains initially, but that doesn't matter much---you'll get enough gratification just by building up a string of successful completions. Keep your early sessions to 5-15 minutes. Once you've been able to do that daily for a couple of months, extend a couple of your workouts to 20 or 30 minutes. There are a ton of great, free workouts on YouTube (Yoga with Adrienne, Fitness Blender, Millionaire Hoy, and on and on) of various durations. Once you get to a point where you're working out at least 15 minutes every day, with a few 30-minute workouts a week, you will start to see results. By three months in, you should have a fairly strong habit going, and by six months it will seem like second nature.

Whenever I don't go it's due to a lack of free time and energy. This is because I commute two hours a day to and from work, and I have a very active social life. I hit the gym on an average of 3 times a week, though my goal is 5 times a week. I wish my office had a gym.

Your life improves drastically if you exercise. If you really realize how much it benefits you, you will find yourself impatiently waiting until the next time you go to the gym. Not because you want to go to the gym, but because you want the reward that comes out of it.